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Commentary Archive

The Institute of Medicine's recent report "Dying in America: Improving Quality and Honoring Individual Preferences Near the End of Life" has rekindled an important conversation about what's covered in the Medicare program's benefit package.

Ellen Mickiewicz, a leading expert on Russia and the media, will read from her new book at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy, Wednesday Oct. 1. Mickiewicz, the James Shepley Professor Emeritus of Public Policy and a professor of political science, interviewed 108 students at Russia’s three leading universities for her book “No Illusions: The Voices of Russia’s Future Leaders.” She will read excerpts beginning at 5 p.m. in Sanford’s Fleishman Commons.

In a last-minute change that was taken with no hearings and no prior publicity, the Republican-controlled General Assembly has undermined the fundamental building block of school finance in North Carolina.

We soon may be re-entering the medical Dark Ages. That’s no Chicken Little proclamation. In 2011, the World Health Organization warned of a return to a pre-antibiotic era “where common infections will no longer have a cure, and once again, kill unabated.”

As people who have been studying and, at times, directly involved in, counter terrorism efforts in the U.S. since 9/11, we have been disappointed in the over-hyped public reaction to the emergence of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

Writing in the New York Times today, columnist Shmuel Rosner labeled non-Israeli liberal Jews that are becoming more estranged from modern day Israel, as “fair weather fans” that Israel both can and should ignore. He is dead wrong on both counts.

Not long ago, my cousin was asked by his children if he might lose his job. They had overheard him describing how several people in his neighborhood had recently lost their jobs, and they became worried that dad might be laid off, too.

Thankfully, my cousin is in no danger of losing his job, but millions of others are not so fortunate.

There is no doubt that the takeover of large parts of Iraq and Syria by the militant group the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) presents a major security issue for the United States and the entire region. But let's not make the mistake of labeling ISIS a mere terrorist group that can be addressed with the same counter terrorism tools that have been used against al Qaeda and its affiliated groups since bin Laden and his supporters were dislodged from Afghanistan in 2001.